Latinos oppose the war even more than the general public

From soldiers to reservists to mothers and religious leaders, Latinos all want the troops back home.

It’s been almost three years since Oralia Lozano of Greeley came back from the 11 months mission in Tikrit, and she said she knew it was wrong from the very beginning.

“First they said it was the weapons of mass destruction, and they were not found…I don’t think it was a good idea at all,” she said. “Saddam Hussein was not good to the Iraqi people, but we can’t use that excuse when there are countries with dictatorships like his or even worse.”

Lozano, an army reserve that was stationed in an engineer battalion in Iraq, remembers that, at the beginning, only the insurgents were fighting against the U.S. Army.

“But now the civilians who have joined them,” she said.

From her Farmers Insurance office in west Greeley, Lozano said the government needs to realize that Iraq people are extremely frustrated with the United States because the U.S. hasn’t being able to make any change to improve their lives.

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For Humberto Fierro, however, the biggest concern is that we’re not talking about a conventional war, but a “war of guerrillas” where American soldiers are being cornered and murdered by civilians.

“And the number of dead soldiers, who knows it?,” said Fierro, who is the pastor of Iglesia del Seor Jess, in Evans. “I can’t understand the extent of the government power to control the information, but there are many dead soldiers.”

Fierro said it doesn’t matter that the President assumed his responsability and his strategic mistake in the war because thousands of mothers, widows and orphans from the soldiers killed are the ones paying the price tag, on both sides of the conflict.

And Lozano agrees with him.

She said another 20,000 soldiers will mean only more casualties among the soldiers but also more innocent civilians dying.

“Nothing has changed since the war started,” she said. “The only difference is that now, with the killing of more innocents, the resentiment against the United Stated will grow even more.”